A Normal New York Commute, a Boom and Then Chaos

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Emergency personnel thronged the area of an explosion on Monday morning in a subway corridor near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, and the busy transit hub was evacuated.CreditChristian Hansen for The New York Times

The New York commuters trudged along beneath Times Square: Monday morning, off to work. Walking among them was a man in a hooded sweatshirt.

Then a deafening boom came from him, and then smoke. And then the commuters ran.

The explosion, which the police said was from a pipe bomb strapped to the man, in the long corridor connecting the subway stations at Times Square and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, reverberated through the maze of tunnels and passageways of the city’s busiest transit hub. People scurried like mice, in any direction, unable to figure out where the boom came from. Some stood paralyzed.

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Four people were injured in an explosion in the passageway connecting the Times Square and Port Authority subway stations. A suspect is in custody.Published OnDec. 11, 2017CreditImage by Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Upstairs in the bus terminal, Alicja Wlodkowski was sitting in a restaurant when she saw people run by. “A woman fell, and nobody even stopped to help her because it was so crazy,” said Ms. Wlodkowski, 51, of Stroudsburg, Pa. “I was standing and watching and scared. I didn’t want to go after the people. I didn’t want to go anywhere.”

It was about 7:30 a.m. On a northbound R train pulling into Times Square, a transit officer shouted an order to evacuate. “Everybody was pretty orderly at first,” said Steve Hawkins, 55, a passenger on the train. “Once we got upstairs, everybody started running.”

Law enforcement personnel swarmed the area, herding people, shouting orders. The subway station and the bus terminal were evacuated. No trains, no buses. Traffic stacked up at the Lincoln Tunnel.

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An explosion rattled through one of the busiest transit hubs in New York City, causing the authorities to evacuate hundreds of commuters and throwing the morning into chaos. A suspect was held, and he was among the handful injured.Published OnDec. 11, 2017CreditImage by David Scull/The New York Times

On the corner of Eighth Avenue and 40th Street, Shantell Baines, 34, was sobbing, her black carry-on bag beside her.

“I’m from Virginia and my family is worried sick,” said Ms. Baines, a nurse from Exmore, Va., who had come to the city to visit a friend. She was rushing to the Port Authority to catch a bus when she saw that no one was going anywhere. “I’m still a little shaken up,” she said after hanging up with her boyfriend to tell him she was O.K.

Far from Times Square, the commute crawled. At 125th Street in Harlem, Carlos Correa, 27, tried five times to get on a train but couldn’t fit. He finally squeezed on to an A train and got off at 59th Street, hoping to switch to a train that would allow him to continue his journey to Queens, where he works as a package deliveryman. .

But the trains were stalled. Mr. Correa turned around and headed back to Harlem, where the second half of his work day is based. “I had no choice,” he said.

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misstated how Carlos Correa’s morning commute was disrupted. At the 59th Street subway station, he gave up on taking a southbound D train and returned home to Harlem. He did not switch to a D that would stop a few blocks from Times Square.